Number of the Week: 140% Increase in Food Stamp Use Since 1990

ByPhil Izzo

More people than ever before are receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, but the rate of increase has slowed substantially since the height of the recession.

The number of people collecting food stamps has more than doubled since 1990, even as the population has only increased by about 25%. Part of that was by design. Ever since welfare reform was passed in 1996, Washington has been making it easier for people to collect food stamps. The idea was to get help to those in need before they became destitute.

The numbers first began to swell during the 2001 recession. By 2007 the share of the population receiving assistance for food had climbed over 9% from under 8% in 1990. But the figures really started to jump off the charts during the most recent downturn. In March, the most recent month for which data are available, more than 15%, or some 1 in 7 people, in the U.S. were on food stamps.

In some states the numbers are even higher. (See full interactive map) Mississippi is the state with the largest share of its population relying on food stamps — 22% — though Washington, DC was a bit higher overall at 23%. One in five residents in Oregon, New Mexico, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky also are food-stamp recipients. Wyoming has the smallest share of its population on food stamps — 7%.

Some have raised concerns that even as the economy begins to heal, the food stamp rolls won’t show a commensurate decline. And indeed, even as the unemployment rate has trended down, the share of the population receiving benefits has held steady. But the pace of increase has slowed substantially. In March, the increase from a year earlier was under 3% and fewer people were receiving food stamps than in February. Last March, the year-over-year increase was more than 4%.

Some observers, such as economist and former Obama adviser Jared Bernstein, have noted that even as the unemployment rate has declined, many people have dropped out of the labor force, boosting demand for food assistance. There also is a large underemployment problem in the U.S., and employed people with low wages qualify for food stamps. If the economy improves enough to draw some people back into the labor force and boosts the quality of jobs, the food stamp rolls could very well begin to fall.

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